


The Long Haul

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Seven H/C Bingo Card [10]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Cancer, Gay Bashing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin and Brian have been taking care of each other for as long as they've known each other. Some of those times are just more vivid than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Haul

**Author's Note:**

> First part takes place in S2, second part in S4. Just a little reflection on the boys and what they mean to each other.

When Justin moves into Brian's apartment after the bashing, Brian knows it isn't going to be easy. He knows he's likely signing up for the long haul, but, at the same time, he can't find it in himself to care that much. Justin's already gotten under his skin. There's really going to be no getting rid of him now.

So Brian welcomes Justin into his home and does his best not to look back. He monitors Justin's improvement, helps him with his exercises, watches him slowly grow stronger and braver until Brian no longer sees a baseball bat careening toward Justin's skull every time he looks at him. It's still there, diminished but not forgotten, and Brian wonders sometimes if it will ever go away.

He doesn't think so.

The first time Justin can hold a pencil for a straight ten minutes to draw something, Brian feels something like gratitude for the first time since he was a boy toward a god that he doesn't believe in. He never tells Justin this, but that drawing--which Justin himself had crumpled up in disdain, still resides in the bottom of a drawer of his dresser. He never takes it out, but just the knowledge that it's there, that Justin survived, that _they_ survived, that both of them overcame fear and doubt to make it through what might be the worst time in their lives. That's really all Brian needs.

That knowledge-- _we survived_ \--keeps him firm when Justin rages against his situation, and sometimes that knowledge is all that keeps him going on his worst days. It's a reminder that they can endure, and that they will. So Brian takes on every aspect of Justin's recovery that Justin will let him take on, and, between the two of them, they learn how to navigate this new phase of their lives.

\----

Brian won't let Justin take care of him. Justin's known this since before the cancer, since before he moved in, almost since the moment they first met. Brian won't let Justin take care of him. Justin knows this.

Justin also rejects this.

Because as much as he knows and loves Brian, he also knows where his weaknesses lie. Brian is an impossibly proud man, certain in every element of his life and his world, and when one touchstone slips even slightly, it takes time for him to adjust. Justin would have been happy to let him take that time. Then Michael almost fucked that up, and now it's up to Justin to help set Brian back on his path to normalcy.

It's as he stands in Brian's kitchen, chicken soup on the burner, that he finds himself wondering where this is all going to lead. Justin knows that Brian isn't a forever kind of man, but he also knows that he himself might be. But he knows just as fiercely that he doesn't want to stand beside anyone but Brian, that he can't see himself with anyone else in the long run. He'd tried that once before, and it hadn't gone so well. For all that he knows there are other fish in the sea, there's a part of him that just doesn't _want_ anyone else. It won't be an easy path, that much is obvious, but it's also the only path that makes sense to Justin. He's here, in their home--and when did it become theirs instead of Brian's?--doing what he was expressly told not to do because he wants to be here, and if that isn't the most surefire way to know that he's in this for the long haul, he doesn't know what is.

When the door swings open and Brian comes in, Justin knows he's made his decision. They may not be a forever kind of pair, but sometimes all you need is now.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my second bingo for Round Seven of H/C Bingo, with a drive-by beta from the always lovely [Tina](http://idoltina.tumblr.com/).
> 
> [Come hang out with me on tumblr!!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


End file.
